In the meantime, he would just enjoy having the house to himself. Then a thought occurred to him. The reason Linda had left was because he was always living in the meantime. He had secretly wanted the house to himself for eight years. Obviously, it had shown.
He was thinking too much. He would deal with everything tomorrow. He went down to the basement, got his bong and little stash, took it up to the bedroom, and smoked. Couldn’t do that with Linda and Ellie there.
He exhaled a long, slow stream. Nobody to criticize him.
Freedom.
THE NEXT MORNING, as so often was the case after a big storm, it was sunny. The snow was melting fast, the icicles hanging from the gutter of the back porch dripping furiously over the disused plumbing equipment, splattering Mitch’s socks as he tried to smoke a cigarette. The bad feeling from after the robbery had returned full force. Mitch kept having to stifle the urge to grab his prepared bag of money and sundries and tear off without even saying goodbye to Doug. Couldn’t these guys see anything coming?
There was a knock on the door and Mitch froze. Jesus Christ, this was it. He began to tremble and watched the cigarette shake in his hand as he wondered where he had left his bag. Could he get to the bag and over the neighbor’s fence before the cops kicked the front door in? He tiptoed to the edge of the porch and peered around the side of the house and saw Kevin’s truck.
Shit. He was going nuts. He exhaled, surprised at his panicked reaction. He answered the front door, hoping that his little fear episode wasn’t still evident on his face.
“Dude, hope I didn’t wake you up,” Kevin said cheerfully. “I gotta walk some dogs today and I was hoping you could spot me a bud or two.”
“Sure.” Mitch went to get his bag of weed and a baggie. “Why are you walking dogs on a Saturday?”
“A couple of clients are out of town for the weekend.” As an afterthought, he added, “Linda left me last night.”
Mitch didn’t know what to say. He felt he should offer something supportive, but the only comment that came to him was that a blind man could have seen that one coming.
“That sucks, dude,” Mitch said finally, not sure if Kevin even agreed. From his cheerful demeanor, he looked like he had shed a burden rather than lost a family. Some marriages were better ended, Mitch thought, aware that he knew nothing of the subject and didn’t really intend to find out.
Doug came downstairs, sleepy-eyed and bed-headed, and nodded to them. Mitch handed Kevin the weed as Kevin’s cell phone rang.
“Dude, you want some coffee?” Doug called from the kitchen.
But Mitch was watching Kevin. “Yeah,” Kevin was saying into the phone. “I took him in my car and we buried him. I mean, I buried him. In a yard.”
Mitch could hear the other person talking; Kevin was nodding. Then he hung up. “That was weird,” he said.
“Do you want coffee?” Doug called again.
“What do you mean ‘weird’?” Mitch stood up.
“The cops found Scotch Parker’s body. He had a collar on him with a phone number. That was Mrs. Parker. She wanted to know why the cops came to her house this morning asking about her dog being buried in that guy’s yard.”
“The cops came? Over a dog?”
“Huh?” Doug shouted from the kitchen. “What’s this about a dog?”
Mitch felt his heart start thumping again, like it had a few moments before. He searched for an excuse that would make everything all right. “Maybe the guy was just pissed… about the dog being buried in his yard. Maybe…”
“She said there were three cops. They were very serious.”
Doug came out into the living room and saw the looks on Kevin’s and Mitch’s faces, confused, yet worried. “The cops went to that old dude’s house?” he asked.
They began finishing each other’s sentences again. “Which means-”
“They found the car.”
“Fuck!” yelled Kevin. “I told you we should have found a ravine. You gotta have a ravine. You can’t just leave a getaway car just sitting there.”
“But…” said Mitch slowly, still piecing things together, “… they knew to go to the lady who owned the dog.”
The three of them stood in the living room in silence while this information sank in, staring at each other, each hoping another would say something obvious and comforting which would make everything OK.
“And the lady must have given them your number,” said Mitch.
“She did,” said Kevin.
“We are fucked.” Mitch sat down heavily on the couch.
“After all that. A fucking dead dog,” marveled Kevin. “I shoulda just thrown his body out the fucking window.”
“OK, we’re fucked,” said Mitch, his paratroop commander persona taking over. He jumped up and flung open the closet door and took out his coat and started looking around for his shoes. He found them and put them on. “Here’s the deal,” he began while hurriedly tying them. “You give us up. We’ll be ready for it. All your money’s hidden. Just say you drove us out there to buy the car and that was it. Go walk dogs.”
Kevin turned to go. “Sorry, dudes,” he said.
“Sorry, man,” said Doug, still holding a coffee pot in the kitchen doorway.
“Later, man.” Mitch was a blur of activity, flying around, getting everything together. He opened his duffel bag and saw the money, the socks, and the underwear. He tried to decide if he needed another pair of jeans. Fuck it, he had enough to buy a new pair if it came to that. Kevin was still standing in the doorway.
“Gimme that weed back, man,” Mitch said. “The cops’ll be going through your shit later.”
Kevin, whose hand was noticeably shaking, handed the little baggie back to Mitch.
“Get outta here. Go walk dogs.”
As they heard Kevin’s truck pull out of the driveway, Mitch turned to Doug, who still hadn’t moved.
“Dude, last chance. I’d come with me if I were you.”
Doug didn’t look panicked or even slightly freaked out. He was standing in the kitchen doorway, coffee pot in his hand, with a serene smile on his face. “Nah, man. I’ll be OK.”
“You know you’ll go to jail. You’ll wake up in jail by tomorrow morning.”
Doug nodded. Mitch went over and shook his hand. “Later, dude.”
“Later.”
Mitch turned to leave, then turned back. “I gotta be able to get in touch with you, to pay for a lawyer.”
Doug shook his head. “I’ll have Kevin handle that.” They stared at each other for a few seconds, then Doug asked, “Where are you gonna go?”
“I dunno.”
“Good luck.”
“Same to you.” The door slammed, and he was gone. As he was running down the steps and out into the street, Mitch thought, Guess I’m not going to get a chance to paint the ceiling.
CHAPTER 14
THEY CAME FOR Kevin when he returned from walking dogs. The whole time he was walking Duffy, the St. Bernard, he had been expecting cop cars to come screeching up to him. But they had just sat outside his house waiting for him to come home.
They were very polite and Kevin was very prepared. He was expecting to be wrestled to the ground and have his face pushed into the wooden floor of his porch, his mouth filling with paint chips, as had happened when they busted him for pot. But the detective was the kindly looking older man he had seen on TV and he just showed Kevin his badge and asked a few questions.
“How are you today, Mr. Gurdy?” the detective asked.
Kevin nodded. “Is this about the dead dog? Because Mrs. Parker just called me,” he said, looking at the three police officers. “I’m really sorry. I didn’t know there were all these laws about dog burial.”
The detective gave him a skeptical smile and nodded. “Where were you yesterday afternoon at about three P.M.?”